Squiddlioni

That’s Dyson Sphere Program. You can fly to different star systems and collect various resources to grow your factories, build a solar collector swarm, and eventually Dyson spheres to harvest energy from stars. If you’re into factory games, I highly recommend it.

Almost 20 years ago I convinced my high school library to let me install Debian on one of the computer groups. I found the “eject” command, and wrote a script that just invoked it with an argument to close the tray. I named that script “inject”. Being high schoolers, my friends and I made scripts to “eject” and “inject”, along with various beeps, and named the scripts suggestive and tawdry things. We all had a good giggle setting the systems off on their little routines and walking away.

Looks like Patricia Tallman, maybe? Lyta from Babylon 5.

Like many respondents on this decorporatized FOSS wang-dang-doodle, my answer is some variation on “Linux for desktop/laptop unless I’m forced to use the W-word” and “Whichever mobile OS makes the browser happen while I’m away from Linux, but I’m sad that it’s not Linux”.

That’s entirely fair. My kid’s aversions are mostly about familiarity and not about flavor or texture, or random whim. What we did ended up working out, but you’re right that it isn’t necessarily going to be the case with every kid, and I probably shouldn’t have implied that it was the “right” thing to do. It was certainly lucky, but as with many parenting strategies, that it worked with my kid doesn’t mean it would work with others.

Yes, posted in a parenting community, where discussing parenting is presumably fair game. It’s a relatable experience, but as the parent of a kid with involuntary food aversions, who grew up with family members getting into screaming matches over kids not trying food at holidays every year, I thought it was worth raising that this isn’t always within a child’s control.

Not quite sure what you were hoping to accomplish with this comment. My kid mainly eats broccoli, tomatoes, berries, rice, eggs, carrots, tofu, beets, beans, fish, and spinach. We’ve recently convinced him to eat french fries, chicken nuggets, pepperoni, and noodles. We knew pickiness was possible so we very carefully chose which foods to expose him to from a very young age so his default comfort zone was healthy food. If he has trouble trying new french fries I think it’s reasonable to accept that he has a legitimate aversion that he doesn’t control.

Yes, but it’s also important to remember that this is universally recognized because it’s a common aspect of preadolescent brains. I know this is just a comic, but I’ve seen a lot of parents treat it like willful belligerence (and sometimes it might be), but that’s not necessarily accurate or constructive. Kids don’t choose that their brain makes them prefer certain things and have a visceral aversion to new foods. Some kids can be encouraged to try things and will enjoy them once they’ve tried them, but some kids just can’t do it until their brain is more developed and the disgust reaction to new food dampens.

It’s an extreme example, but I’ve watched my kid try to force himself to eat something because I asked him to try it and he was literally shaking and dry heaving trying to put it in his mouth. IIRC it was a french fry that was shaped differently than the ones he usually eats. Like I said, extreme example, but kid brains are legit wired differently when it comes to food, and that should be respected.

Not sure why you’re being downvoted. The anecdote happens to parallel the scientific consensus, but “I’m told that dentists can tell” isn’t an appropriate argument when discussing medical research.

The link above is not reputable and was directly refuted by, among others, the American Dental Association, the American Dental Education Association, the American Association for Dental Research, the American Academy of Pediatrics, and the Harvard School of Dental Medicine itself. From the response letter signed by the dean of the HSDM:

The magazine article states that CWF “does not appear to have any benefits in adults” based on the results of the Cochrane systematic review. However, the Cochrane review did not make this conclusion. Rather, the review specifically states “We did not identify any evidence, meeting the review’s inclusion criteria, to determine the effectiveness of water fluoridation for preventing caries in adults.” Due to the lack of studies that met the inclusion criteria, the Cochrane authors were not able to make any conclusion on the effect of CWF on adults. In fact, there are studies that were not included in the Cochrane review that demonstrate a caries preventive benefit of CWF in adults.

See the letter I linked for the studies it’s referencing with a demonstrated benefit to adult teeth. The Cochrane review’s inability to conclude whether there was a benefit or not was a limitation of the Cochrane review’s inclusion criteria, and not an absence of studies indicating a benefit.

The source is not as reputable as it appears. The article in question is not from the Harvard School of Dental Medicine, and in fact was condemned by the HSDM. The actual dental experts at Harvard requested a formal retraction of the article: “Based on the significant flaws in the magazine article, we respectfully request that the article be rescinded, and a correction be published to clarify any misleading information that was provided.”

Thank you for the link. It’s worth mentioning that there are response letters to the publication you linked from other experts, the majority of which are critical and point out misinterpretations and omissions by the author. It’s always good to question, but in this instance it looks like the consensus amongst experts evaluating that publication is still that fluoridation is safe and improves dental health. The response letters can be read here.

Edit to add: The responses include a letter from the dean of the Harvard School of Dental Medicine stating that the publication is deeply flawed and requesting a retraction, and a similar condemnation from the students of the Harvard School of Dental Medicine. The article was given greater weight by being linked to Harvard, but in fact Harvard dental experts explicitly disagree.